After a slow start on Saturday where I cancelled sailing due to predicted storms that didn’t arrive? We followed it up with a absolutely perfect Sunday with sunshine and reasonable wind. We are in the final preparation stage for the replacement of the caged area roof beams this weekend with the steel ordered and delivered on Friday so lets hope barring any unforeseen problems we will have a new strong and not rusty roof for the next weekend. Please remember that the club will have no sailing over next weekend due to safety concerns while building works are being carried out.Sunday Juniors 8.30 class; With 10 budding Junior sailors turning up for Juniors in the morning and the wind speed around 6 knots it was a great day for everyone to practice both steering and crewing. A special pat on the back to Riley and Ryan (still cant tell them apart) who spent some time with me working on their tacking as they were facing backwards coming out of their tacks so consequently they were pointing in the wrong direction and despite a shaky start they both managed to nail it and were off with the rest of the fleet. Also thanks Dallas for taking young Maraya out its always good when our more experienced sailors volunteer their help.Sunday Juniors 10.30 class ; Again as like the previous Sunday we had 13 students turn up for sailing (lucky I repaired another Tera) with winds swinging to the s/e at around 5/8 knots it was a perfect opportunity for everyone to practice not only tacking but gybing with a few early swims in the gybes but with also some stand outs in Patrick , Mark ( excellent) Lilly and India (two up) plus Dallas and with a bit of coaching Jonah, everyone else all improved greatly even Nick who doesn’t like gybing. The sailing was so impressive that I have suggested to Mark, Patrick, Dallas and the two girls that they should move over to racing at 1.30 pm as their skills are good enough to be up to the challenge. Well done everyone .Open Bic Racing; For the race team we only had two sailors in Dylan (CT)and Chip Charlie out there as Sienna had a concert and Luka had boat troubles which I promised his dad I wouldn’t mention the details! Due to Aidan being off with the flu I had the two boys out there working on starts and upwind and broad reaching with a bit of a struggle at first with both boys not sheeting on enough up wind and sheeting on too much on the broad reach, but after a few goes they were going well upwind and faster on the broad reach. I have to mention a couple of things one being Dylan's tacks after the b/ reach were very ordinary and with Charlie he has to keep the sail on despite his fingers hurting. All in all boys a good effort as you will need those skills for Port Stephens.Club Racing; I don’t know what happened but we had a very small turnout for racing with only 8 boats on the water last weeks tide must have scared them off except for Andrew who blew his knee while tacking a 30 footer on Saturday. It was good to see all the boys out there (Lachy, George , Will and Oscar) in 4.7 lasers with Will just squeezing George out at the finish line and Lachy squeezing Oscar out at the finish also. Top place went to Roger (light weight light conditions) with Peter Fell second and Pieter Verstoep third in my boat as his was stuck in the garage. Its the first time my boat has had a radial on board I hope it wasn’t too disappointed I will have to take it out with the full rig on just to let it know it was a one off. No racing now for two weeks with the Spring Series starting on the 6th of October with the dates to be posted on the website this week. As you all may have seen we have secured a part of the QLA traveller series in March next year and work is still under way for any Open Bic River Series to hopefully start in the new year as well. CU all in two weeks unless you are helping with the roof over the weekend John Murphy President/Sailing manager P.P.S.C.